Simp-simply in Nammooru

A novel about a Bengaluru that has all but disappeared is difficult to resist, despite its many flaws.

It is the year 1993. And the song ‘What’s behind a blouse? What’s under a shawl?’ aka ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai…’ is on everyone’s lips. Karthik Subramanian, all of 12, is about to enter Class VII in Bengaluru’s tony St George’s that has produced ‘four state cricketers, one national cricketer, tens of professors across elite world institutions, hundreds of doctors, engineers, scientists, chartered accountants, bankers and lawyers…’ — you get the drift.

It promises to be a very exciting year.

What’s Wrong With You, Karthik? (unimaginative title, that!) then proceeds to take us through Karthik’s year, its ups and downs, its wins and losses as the eponymous protagonist negotiates the demands of making himself at home in a new school, making friends, holding his own, even as he has to ace all his exams, especially Maths, which is something his Tambrahm family constantly remind him about as they slurp their rasam and polish off their curd rice.

As Karthik meanders along, we are witness to the angst of a boy on the cusp of teenage. We see him negotiate the demands of his dim-witted friends and the class nerds, handle a grandfather obsessed with scoring a centum in Maths and manage to remain in the good books of a regressive-minded father who is wont to blame ‘reservation’ for the nation’s ills when he is not cursing the traffic, the roads or the politicians. Along the way, much happens — smoking on the sly, copying in an exam, winning a cricket match and other incidents that are the stuff of school life.

Finest moment?

The author is at his best when he is capturing conversations. Karthik and his friends’ usage of Bengaluru’s English-language colloquialisms — ‘fatty bumbalatty’ ‘simp-simply’ ‘woaling’ and so on — bring forth more than a chuckle. The whispered conversations of Karthik’s classmates slobbering over the smut they are passing around is perhaps the novel’s finest moment. The conversations of a Tambrahm family obsessed with topping exams are also captured very competently. Especially memorable is the visit of Karthik’s ‘Madrasi’ relatives and their constant griping about Bengaluru’s weather.

Given the author’s deft touches in the language department, what jars is the name he has chosen for Karthik’s old school — ‘Sacred Valley’. This strange moniker appears to be a north Indian transplant given that one hears of schools like ‘Perfect Convent’ and others similarly named, in that part of the world.

Such a name in a ‘90s Bengaluru, still hung over with its Raj-era nostalgia, is not believable. Also, in the language department, stale jokes of ‘let the airforce in’ variety could have perhaps been edited out.

The male characters all appear real and relatable. A complaining appa, a preachy thatha, a PE teacher who is trophy-obsessed and others of the sort, are all well-etched. There are only two important female characters — one, a substitute Maths teacher, and the other, the protagonist’s mother. It is the mother who is perhaps the author’s biggest failure. She hovers in the background and plays more or less a walk-on role, exhibiting flashes of underdeveloped potential. Her back story remains muted and that is a pity given that the thatha gets more than his fair share of airtime.

A sense of wistfulness

As good as the novel is in its initial half, eventually, its limitations surface. The lack of an engaging plot and the lengthiness of the work both mar readability. There is only that much getting the lingo down pat can do and the lack of a strong story begins to tell in the last 100-odd pages.

Hereon, the work rapidly slips into predictability. The ‘bad boys’ inevitably get their comeuppance. Karthik sails through difficulties more or less unscathed. And, of course, he gets within a hair’s breadth of that much-sought-after Maths centum. At the end of the school year, he is triumphant, having conquered all his ghosts. Now, there is much to look forward to in the coming school year.

After all, Karthik’s irritating father has scored a brief overseas assignment in Manchester, no less, and Karthik himself has made it into the principal’s good books.

But even as the year ahead looks good, very good, there is a sense of wistfulness. Which is what can be said for the novel as well. More could perhaps have been done. A tad more attention could have been paid to coming up with a meatier plot, perhaps. A little more attention to trimming the bulges in places.

Still, a novel about Bengaluru, especially a Bengaluru that has all but disappeared, is an attraction difficult to resist. For those of us who grew up in that Bengaluru, which only exists in our heads now, there’s much to enjoy through recall. For those who are unable to relate to that Bengaluru, there is much to learn. Either way, a winning proposition!